Archive for July, 2015

Minor 7th Piano Chords – Mellow!

In our video today we are going to cover one of the most-used types of chords – the minor 7th piano chords.

Good morning. This is Duane and we’re reviewing some of our basic chords so they’ll be fresh in our mind. Today I’d like to look at minor seventh chords. Minor seventh chords are a very major kind of chord, a much-used kind of chord and very, very necessary to playing. A minor seventh chord is, of course, a minor chord with a dominant seventh in it. That’s a C minor seventh, okay? If you want to look at it, it’s a stack of a minor third, and then a major third, and then a minor third. It’s well-balanced, isn’t it? Minor, major, minor. It creates that kind of beautiful sound.

Okay, so a minor seventh is simply, you take a major chord and make it minor by lowering the third half step. Then you add the dominant seventh. Not the major seventh. Don’t add that. That’s a different chord we’ll talk about later. I’m just talking about minor sevenths now. Get acquainted with those in both hands because they’re very, very useful kind of chords.

If you add a ninth to it, you have this kind of sound. Kind of exciting kind of jazzy deal. Okay, thanks for being with me and we’ll see you tomorrow with another review of some sort. If you’re not signed up for our free series of newsletters, be sure and do that. A lot of newsletters and videos and so on. Come on over to PlayPiano and do that. See you then. Bye bye for now.

6th And 7th Piano Chords: Three Different Types Of Chords

Good morning, this is Duane and we’ve been doing a series of reviews of major and minor chords and yesterday we did augmented and diminished chords. Today I’d like to take up 6th chords and 7th chords. That sounds like two types of chords, but it’s actually three types of chords, because a 6th is formed by adding the 6th note of the scale to the major chord. If the major chord say is C, and you add the 6th note of the scale, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, that’s called C 6th, okay? If you add the 6th to a minor chord, that’s called C minor 6th, okay? It’s still a 6th, whether it’s major or minor, in other words.

Then there’s a kind of 7th called a dominant 7th chord. That is not the 7th note of the scale, it’s not that one. It’s the flat 7th degree of the scale, okay? If you see a notation of C 7th, that’s what it means. You play it a C dominant 7th.

If the composer or the arranger wanted you to play that chord, he would say MAJ 7th chord. There’s a difference between the 7th and a major 7th. The 7th is technically a dominant 7th, but it’s in common usage is just called a 7th, and then the major 7th is the 7th degree of the scale.

Let’s go through the 12 major chords and add both a 6th and a dominant 7th and a 7th to see what they look like, okay? We’ve done C, now let’s go onto F. That’s F major, the 6th would be the whole step above the 5th, or it could count up the scale to 6. It’s easier to just think a whole step above the 5th. A 7th is a half step above that, so that’s F 7th. That’s F major 7th.

Here’s a G major triad, if I add a 6th I’d add the 6th note of the G scale. There’s the dominant 7th, which is a half step above that, and there’s the major 7th. The D triad, D major triad is like that. You’ve got to remember it’s black note in the middle, black key in the middle. A 6th is like that, a 7th is like that, and a major 7th is like that. E major, E major 6th is not there, is it? Why? Because I have to go up a whole step from the 5th to find the 6th. That’s E 6th. That’s E 7th, and that’s E major 7th. Here’s A major, A major 6th, A major 7th, I’m sorry. Not major 7th. A 7th, and A major 7th.

It gets kind of confusing because the chord is major whether you’re playing it dominant 7th or a major 7th. That can be a little confusing. That’s D flat major, where’s the 6th? 6th note of the D flat scale is there, but we can find it also by going up a whole step from the 5th, okay? That’s D flat 6th, D flat 7th, D flat major 7th. E flat, E flat 6th, E flat 7th, E flat major 7th. A flat, A flat 6th, A flat 7th, A flat major 7th. G flat, G flat 6th, G flat major 7th. B, B 6th, B 7th, and B major 7th. B flat, B flat 6th, B flat 7th, and B flat major 7th, okay?

So far in this series we’ve considered major and minor chords, and we’ve said that a major chord is made out of the root 3rd and 5th of the major scale, whatever that is. A minor chord is formed by lowering the 3rd from the major chord. A diminished chord is made by lowering the 3rd and the 5th from a major chord. An augmented chord is formed by raising the 5th a half a step. Now if I add the 6th note of the scale that’s a 6th, if I add another half step, that’s a 7th, major 7th, okay? If you’re not familiar with those, be sure and play through all of what I just did. Do it with your left hand as well, because you often play chords in the left hand more than you do in the right hand, although it’s good to play it in both hands, okay? You get familiar with them.

All right, that’s it for today. Tomorrow we’ll take up another couple kinds of chords and review those, so see you then. Bye bye for now.

Half-Diminished 7th Piano Chord – Not Much Used But Good To Know

Our video today is about the half-diminished 7th piano chord and the min/maj7 chord.

Good morning. This is Duane. Today I’d like to cover two kinds of seventh chords that are seldom used, but you really have to know about them anyway. We covered the dominant seventh, which is a major chord with the flat of the seventh degree of the scale. We covered major seventh chords, which uses the seventh degree of the major scale, seven. That’s a major seventh. So we covered a dominant seventh that uses a flat seventh and a major seventh. We also covered the minor seventh last time, where you take a minor chord and add the dominant seventh. Previously, we covered the diminished seventh, which is a double flatted seventh.

Now, there’s two other kinds of seventh chords that you just need to know about. They’re not used much, but it’s good to know them anyway. One is called a half-diminished chord. What you do is you form the diminished chord. Then you play the dominant seventh with it. That’s called half-diminished. Diminished seventh is like that, so that’s half-diminished. It’s not a whole step. It’s a half step. Again, half-diminished chord.

Then there’s a minor chord with a major seventh. We have a C-minor chord, but the major seventh. That has an entirely different flavor than the mellow minor seventh chords. I think I told you that minor seventh chords are very mellow and they’re used a lot. This chord is not mellow at all and it’s used for effect, but not if you want to create a mellow sound. There’s a lot of tension in it. That would be notated as C-minor MAJ seventh after it. So just two additional kinds of seventh chords that you need to know about. If you enjoy these little tips, come onto our PlayPiano.com and sign up for our series free piano tips. Hope to see you there. Bye, bye for now.

Augmented And Diminished Piano Chords – Do You Know All Of Them?

Do you know all of the augmented and diminished piano chords? If not, here is a quick video review.

Good morning. This is Duane. We’ve been talking a little timeout from our usual schedule of talk about music theory and so on to just do a little basic review of chords. I think it’s good from time to time to review the basics. Yesterday we reviewed major and minor chords and how they’re formed. We said a major chord is the root, 3rd, and 5th of a major scale. If I take a major scale and take the root, 3rd, and 5th, that’s a major triad, major chord.

To make it minor, we just simply lower the 3rd. We went through all 12 chords and made them major, minor, major, minor, major, minor, major, minor, major, minor, major, minor, major, minor, major, minor, major, minor, major, minor, major, minor, manor, minor. We really covered 24 chords, the 12 major and the 12 minor. We also said that you probably only use six or seven of those of six or seven major chords and six or seven minor chords in most of your playing, but it’s good to know all of them.

Today I’d like to quickly review augmented and diminished triads. Triad is a three-note chord. An augmented chord is simply formed by raising the 5th of a major triad. If you know what the major chord is, you just go up a half step and that’s C augmented. That’s F major, F augmented; E major, E augmented; D major, D augmented; E major, E augmented. There’s no black key to the right of B so we played B sharp, but it looks like C. A major, A augmented; D flat major, D flat augmented. There we make the A flat natural at that point just by raising it a half step. E flat major, E flat augmented; A flat major, A flat augmented; G flat major, G flat augmented; B major, B augmented. By the way, when you sharp a sharp, that’s called a double sharp. It looks like G but you got to call it F double sharp. If you were writing it you’d have to write a F double sharp to be musically accurate. There’s B flat major, B flat augmented.

There’s 12 major keys, 12 minor keys, and 12 augmented keys, aren’t there? Now the only other chord we want to cover today is diminished triads. There’s a different chord called a diminished 7th. I’ve talked about that in depth, but here we’re just talking about a three-note chord. To make a diminished triad you lower the 3rd a half step and the 5th a half step, or both of them a half step. That’s F diminished. Lower the A to A flat, lower the C to C flat. G major, G diminished by lowering the 3rd and the 5th. D major, D diminished; E major, E diminished; A major, A diminished; E flat major, E flat diminished; A flat major, A flat diminished; G flat major, G flat diminished; B major, B diminished. Notice B diminished is all white because I lowered the two sharps down a half step. B flat major and B flat diminished.

Now some of you may saying, “Whoa, whoa. Slow down. You’re going too fast.” Yeah, I realize that but the point is to make a diminished triad all you need to do is lower the 3rd and the 5th. You can do that on your own. You find the major chord, then you lower the 3rd and the 5th. You can take it as slow as you want then. I’m just giving you a quick walkthrough. That’s it for today, a little review of augmented and diminished triads. We’ll see you tomorrow with another brief review. If you aren’t, sign up for our free newsletter. Come on over to playpiano.com and sign up for that because it’s loaded with all kinds of good stuff. Thanks for being with me and we’ll see you tomorrow. Bye.

All 12 Major And 12 Minor Piano Chords

Good morning, this is Duane and today we’re going to take a quick three minute review of all major and minor chords. A lot of people think there’s an infinite number of major and minor chords, but there’s not. There’s only twelve major chords and twelve minor chords, and you really don’t need to play all those on the piano. You can usually get away with playing half a dozen major and half a dozen minor. That’ll see you through, okay?

Now it’s good to learn all of them, but in common usages most people only use half a dozen of them, okay? Let’s quickly review them. A major chord is based on a major scale, which goes like this. Whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step, okay? A C major chord is that, the root third and fifth of the C scale. The F major chord is that, the root third and fifth of the F scale. The G major chord is that, the root third and fifth of the G scale. There’s three major chords that are all white. C, F, and G.

One you know those major chords, then you can make up minor chords simply by lowering the third a half step. That’s C major and that’s C minor. That’s F major and that’s F minor. That’s G major and that’s G minor. Simple, right? Now you’ve already learned six chords, if you didn’t know those already, okay? There’s three that are all white, C, F, and G, and three that have that black third, the C minor chord, F minor, and G minor. Simply by lowering the middle note, the middle key of the chord. Lowering the third a half step. Major, minor, major, minor, major, minor.

There’s three major chords that have a black key in the center, that’s D, E, and A. D, E, A, does that ring a bell? It’s a government agency, isn’t it? DEA, okay? Now remember that DEA, because there’s three chords, three major chords, that are like that. They’re D, E, and A but they’re D flat, E flat, and A flat. They’re like Oreo cookies, they’re black on the outside, white on the inside. D flat, E flat, and A flat. Remember D, E, and A have a black middle key, a black third. D flat, E flat, and A flat are just the opposite, they have a black on the outside, white on the inside.

What’s true of course in the right hand is true in the left hand, major, minor, major, minor, major, minor, major, minor, okay? Once you know those chords then you can have access to all the songs that use those chords and of course there are no other major or minor chords other than what I just covered, okay? As we get more advanced, we add things to that. We add diminished and augmented chords, and we add six and sevenths and ninths and color tones, all kinds of stuff, but it all starts there. Master that if you haven’t. We’ll see you tomorrow with another quick review like that. Bye bye for now.